Apple on Thursday released a minor update to iTunes and also vowed to offer Apple TV and iTunes users the treat of a low-cost movie rental each week.

Available only through Apple's automatic update feature as of press time, iTunes 7.6.1 addresses several unnamed bugs with the music software.

The fix also improves compatibility between iTunes and a networked Apple TV running the version 2.0 upgrade, Apple says.

Separately, Apple has also begun informing subscribers to its e-mail newsletters that it will offer a selected movie title each week at a 99-cent price, or a third of the price of a back catalog, standard-definition title. The first title is The Hours.

The movie's special pricing takes effect each Thursday and lasts until the following Monday, giving customers the opportunity to finish downloading and playing the movie before the weekend ends.

Apple has regularly offered discounts on music with its free weekly tracks, but until now has not supplied a regular discount on videos.

Good idea to have 99 cent specials...you'd think the owners of old movies would cooperate and reduce prices on some of their old titles that otherwise wouldn't command much attention.

As for not being able to go back, nonsense, itunes regularly offers a free song of the week or a free video or tv show, sometimes great sometimes not so great, but it hasn't stopped them from sell 4 billion songs.

This is exactly how I became addicted to itunes. You have to have an account to be able to get the free songs and once you get past that initial barrier it is so easy to continue purchasing media through itunes.

*oh, and you have to keep your account paid off to get the free/discounted media (obvious I know but found this out by accident one time)

Doesn't look desperate to me. It's a great idea. What a great traffic driver, pulling people in just to see what the movie is each week. Very smart.

As long as I'm here: I don't think Apple is in a desperate situation in any way, shape, or form. I expect the stock to be back to the $200 neighborhood by Christmas.

I've been buying since it hit $30, all the way up to $170. I have various lots, my biggest purchased at $60. And there's one thing that makes me think the stock has legs: People are switching to Mac at a phenomenal rate. People who I never could have imagined asking me about a Mac are switching. The rate is going to increase exponentially as the world realizes all their photos and Word docs work on a Mac.

Every switcher is another iLife buyer down the road. Another OS X buyer. Another Applecare...

Separately, Apple has also begun informing subscribers to its e-mail newsletters that it will offer a selected movie title each week at a 99-cent price, or a third of the price of a back catalog, standard-definition title. The first title is The Hours.

i'm one of what appear to be MANY itunes users that have seen the app debilitated by the move to 7.6...

none of my music files actually play anymore and you can't plug an ipod in for an update, b/c the whole thing crashes. ...and let me restate, the AAPL support discussion threads are littered with hundreds of folks experiencing the same thing. and those are the folks willing to take the time to publish their experience...

looks like it was related to movie rentals and itunes needing to repeatedly catalog your video library. the fix AAPL suggested was to set up separate libraries...one for audio and one for video. don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like an elegant solution & not one many folks will put up with for long... hopefully this update obviates the need for such a workaround.

I can't say I expect much from it. It's probably a good idea, but I expect it would only be used for movies that I won't even want to sit through. Most of the iTunes music freebies tended to be like that too, I couldn't stand to finish them, never mind get me interested in buying the album, to the point that I quit grabbing them. It's hardly a good way to promote new artists.

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc., the world's largest buyer of flash memory chips, slashed its projected orders for the semiconductor this year, which may lead some suppliers to post losses this quarter, research firm iSuppli Corp. said.

``Apple has slashed its 2008 NAND order forecast significantly and has informed suppliers that its demand growth will slow in 2008,'' iSuppli said in the statement, without elaborating on specific figures. ``In light of these factors, NAND suppliers are likely to go into the red in the first quarter, and are not likely to recover in the second.''

Jill Tan, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment on the report today. Apple, down 39 percent this year, fell $2.28 to $121.54 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

Sales of the chips grew 12.5 percent last year to $13.9 billion as consumers bought more music players, digital cameras and advanced mobile phones, which require larger storage capacity, iSuppli said. Apple bought 13 percent of the world's NAND flash memory in 2007, according to the statement.

Samsung Electronics Co., based in Suwon, South Korea, maintained its lead as the world's largest maker of the chips with 40 percent share in the fourth quarter, the researcher said. Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp. was second with 27 percent, followed by Ichon, Korea-based Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

AAPL is down because no one senses the stock to be on its way up. You tell me -- do you have a deep gut feeling that 140 is right around the corner? If not, and if you got in around 70 or 80 or 110, why not sell and make some cash? Then when you think it's turning buy some more.

AAPL is down because no one senses the stock to be on its way up. You tell me -- do you have a deep gut feeling that 140 is right around the corner? If not, and if you got in around 70 or 80 or 110, why not sell and make some cash? Then when you think it's turning buy some more.

I give AAPL maybe a year to get back to up around $200. Gene Munster is off his rocker if he thinks it's headed back to $225-$250 any time soon. Then again, momentum may be against Apple... with the possibility of an Obama presidency...Obama would raise rates on capital gains to about 25 percent... things could get VERY depressed in the stock market.

If any of you have the problem with iTunes where the audio cuts out when you mouse over a menu, most noticeably in Safari, Or, if iTunes is stuttering on songs. I figured out it's the 'internet playback' thing.
1. Trash your preferences User/preferences/iTunes stuff
2. When it asks if you want to set iTunes for internet playback, say no.

I did this after zapping the pram... everything works great now. It was annoying surfing in safari trying to listen to online radio and having the audio cut out every time I opened a menu or bookmark stack.

"The Hours is about three women of different generations and times whose lives are interconnected by Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs Dalloway!"

Come on Apple, who wants to watch that?

Come on you know you love a good chick flick.

Actually it's smart marketing on Apple's part. Get the women hooked on iTunes rentals. Around this house at least, the movies rented and watched are chosen pretty much entirely by females, one in particular. They'll watch the same movie 2 or 3 times in one weekend, go figure.

Then again, momentum may be against Apple... with the possibility of an Obama presidency...Obama would raise rates on capital gains to about 25 percent... things could get VERY depressed in the stock market.

(For the record, this has nothing to do with whether I am against or for Obama.) Where did you see/hear that Obama will increase cap gains rate to 25%?

Tim Cook is gay, believes in climate change, and cares deeply about racial equality. Deal with it (and please spare us if you can't).